Of Soufflés and Sentiment
by fishfingersandsouffles
Summary: An entirely pointless, fluffy one-shot about failed soufflés, a TARDIS flying lesson, and 101 Places that ought to be seen but probably won't be. Written simply because there can never be enough Whoufflé. This is my first Doctor Who fic.


_Hello, and thank you for reading! So basically, I think that Whoufflé is the greatest thing to have ever happened. I've never written a multi-chap before, nor have I written a Doctor Who fic, but am seriously considering writing a multi-chap Whoufflé, so I wrote this as a warm-up/trial. I'm testing the waters, so to speak. Many thanks go to the wonderful __**Cls2011**__ for having edited this for me. Enjoy, and please let me know what you think!_

_I do not own Doctor Who, unfortunately. _

Clara stared dejectedly at the day's third attempted chocolate soufflé.

The first one had taken a…lovely charcoal color after having been left in the oven for an hour longer than it should have, but that wasn't her fault. She had gone to her room to grab a book, and the TARDIS had rearranged the rooms, making it impossible for Clara to find the kitchen in time to save her soufflé. The second one looked perfect, but one bite of it had made it abundantly clear that she hadn't stirred in nearly enough sugar. And so, frustrated, she set about trying a third time. She checked that the oven was set at the right temperature, that all the ingredients were in the batter, and that the timer was set for twenty minutes. Clara was sure that she had gotten it right. But, alas, the soufflé came out of the oven having risen precisely no height at all. Frustrated, she scraped it out of the ramekin and tossed it in the bin, muttering that the TARDIS had played a hand in not just the first, but all the failures, before taking all the ingredients she needed out of the cupboards once more and determinedly starting again.

"Clara! Cairo is in your book? Of 101 Places to See, yeah? Well how would you like to see how the pyramids were-" The Doctor stopped suddenly upon reaching the archway to the kitchen. Clara was sitting on the counter top and was using the sleeves of her dress to wipe her eyes. "Clara? Are you alright?" Concerned, he moved towards her and held her face with his hands. "What's the matter?" his eyes searched hers for answers.

She shook her head, "You'll think it's silly." She laughed a short, empty laugh, "_I_ think it's silly."

He moved the wisps of hair that had escaped her ponytail out of her face and kissed the top of her head, "There's nothing wrong with silly. Tell me."

"The soufflés, Doctor. I can never get them right."

"But you're soufflé girl." He insisted.

"You call me that, but I've never actually made a soufflé properly."

"I've never gone to medical school, but I'm still the Doctor." She laughed at that, "And besides, think about all the other things you do _right_. Like taking care of Artie and Angie, and saving people. Saving _me; _time, and time again."

"Can't you see? That's why it makes me sad. We save people, Doctor. You and I, we travel all over time and save civilizations and stop terrible things from happening to people and people from doing terrible things. We go on these incredible adventures and escape death like it's nothing, all in one Wednesday. But I can't do this one simple thing that my mum and so many other people succeeded in doing, and I can't help but feel like that makes me….inadequate."

His hearts bled at her words, and the expression on his face changed from one of concern to that of sorrow. "Oh Clara. There are a great many words that I would use to describe you," He whispered, "but inadequate is definitely not one of them."

Despite not being one to crave the approval of others, Clara was silently pleading the Doctor to go on.

"You are clever, and brilliant, and funny, and brave, and beautiful, and impossible. You are the singular most important person to have ever been born and so many people would be dead right now if it weren't for you. They need you, Clara. _I _need you." He cursed himself for having said so much, but he couldn't make himself regret it. "You are important, Clara. More so than you will ever know, and it pains me to know that you measure your worth in how successful you are in baking little cakes." He wrapped her in his arms and felt her smile against his shoulder.

"Well when you say it like that, Doctor, I sound like a mess." She said, half-jokingly.

He held her more tightly, "I love your mess." It took him a moment for him to register the words he had spoken. Upon doing so though, he jumped away from her, a look of surprise on his face that mirrored hers. They stared at one another, wide-eyed and flustered, until the Doctor felt himself blush and he looked away. He coughed awkwardly, fixed his bow tie, and shuffled about the kitchen, desperately wishing for a change in subject, which Clara eventually provided.

"You had said something about Cairo?"

"Yes! Would you like to go? Or better yet, would you like to take us?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"How would you, Clara Oswald, like to learn how to fly the TARDIS?"

Clara Oswald did not at all want to learn how to fly the TARDIS. She had suffered through enough failures in the short five hours since she'd set foot in the snogbox, and she didn't relish the idea of adding another one to the list. The Doctor must have sensed her concern, "I won't leave your side for a moment, I promise. You'll do wonderfully." But his words did little to soothe her nerves. It was his face, eager and hopeful and staring at her expectantly that caused her to nod despite herself and follow him to the console room.

"Stand here." Clara shuffled nervously to the indicated location and felt the Doctor position himself directly behind her, his arms enveloping hers as he guided her hands to two levers. Her breath caught in her throat.

"Right, so first we're going to pull that lever and press that button, then we'll pull the zigzag plotter, flip this toggle switch, pull that lever again…" But Clara wasn't listening, not really. She was too focused on other things. Like the words that he had spoken earlier that, try as she might to stop them, kept running through her head. Like his breath on her neck. Like their proximity. How his lips occasionally grazed the lobe of her ear when he spoke. How she could feel, rather than see, the muscles in his arms as they moved with hers. And the way she could breathe him in, his scent being the one that she now associated with the idea of home. The combination of these things was too much for Clara, and she found herself fighting the overwhelming desire to shut him up by kissing him.

It didn't take long for her to realize that fighting was futile. She spun around, cupped the Doctor's face with her hands and, tentatively, captured his lips in hers. The Doctor, upon recovering from his initial surprise and arm flailing, responded enthusiastically, lifting Clara up so she was sat on the console and deepening the kiss. Clara moaned into his mouth, and the Doctor doubted that his ears had ever been graced with a sound of paralleled beauty. Her fingers delved into his hair while his traveled up and down her thighs, then grasped her waist, then held her face. He couldn't keep them still. They moved urgently, exploring every dip and curve of her body and committing how they felt beneath his hands to memory. Clara began trailing hot, open-mouthed kisses along the Doctor's jawline, and he shrugged his jacket off his shoulders, "We could always go to Cairo later," He breathed.

She deftly removed the Doctor's bow tie, tossed it behind her, and set about undoing the buttons of his shirt, answering between the kisses she placed on the flesh of his chest as it was exposed. "Yeah. Definitely later." The Doctor ridded Clara of her dress, slipping it off over her head in one swift motion, and his lips found hers once again. Clara moved on to the Doctor's trousers, unfastening the belt as he slid her stockings down her leg. She stopped, resting her forehead against his and chuckling lightly when his hands reached her foot.

He smirked, "Ticklish?"

She shook her head, "No. It just occurred to me that you are a massive liar," she leaned forward and kissed him, chastely, "This is totally a snogbox."

_**A/N**__: The end! Please review, I would definitely appreciate any comments and/or criticism. _

_Also, I stole "I love your mess" from Ruby Sparks, one of my favorite films ever. The multi-chap I'm thinking of writing is inspired by it as well. _

_Thank you for reading! _


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